Sandra Fluke, religious colleges and unexpected rules

Posted at 11:35 AM ET, 03/07/2012
By Jenna Johnson

Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke testified on the Hill in late February and told the story of a friend who enrolled at the law school, paid for a required student health insurance plan and went to the pharmacy to pick up a birth control prescription — only to learn that she would have to pay the full price because her plan wouldn’t cover it.

Georgetown is a Catholic institution that has Jesuit priests living on campus, requires undergraduates to take theology classes and upholds a church teaching that forbids contraception. Such rules can surprise, especially as less than half of Georgetown students identify as being Catholic.

So in addition to igniting a highly personal national debate about mandated coverage of contraceptives, Fluke’s testimony has also prompted discussions about the range of rules governing students at religious colleges.

“We did not expect that women would be told in the national media that we should have gone to school elsewhere” to receive contraception coverage, said Fluke, 30, at a forum held on the Hill on Feb. 23. Fluke has said she is Protestant. “We refuse to pick between a quality education and our health.”

2. Yeah, it's one of the oldest Jesuit colleges.

Washington, DC - The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) acknowledges and appreciates the compromise that President Obama has made to accommodate religious institutions in regard to the birth control mandate under the Affordable Care Act. We commend the Obama Administration for its willingness to work with us on moving toward a solution, and we look forward to working out the details of these new regulations with the White House.